The Christmas Fair Killer

by Amy Patricia Meade

  ‘Everyone does, don’t they? If they live long enough.’ The shiver Bonnie gave as she pulled the blanket around her shoulders belied the indifference of her words.

  There was a knock on the door of Reade’s office. ‘Come in,’ he ordered.

  The same fresh-faced officer appeared in the doorway, this time bearing a circular aluminum foil container with a white cardboard lid and some cutlery from the break room. ‘Your eggs and toast, sir. There’s some bacon in there too.’

  Reade thanked the officer and presented the food to Bonnie Broussard. ‘There you go. That’s from the best breakfast place in Hobson Glen. Maybe even all of Richmond.’

  Bonnie removed the lid and smiled appreciatively. ‘I actually am kinda hungry. I missed supper last night, too.’

  ‘Then, please, eat up,’ Reade advised. ‘I’ll give you a minute or two to enjoy your food and then, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you some more questions.’

  Bonnie shook her head and nibbled on a slice of buttered toast. ‘If it will help find who did this, you can ask all you want.’ She plunged her fork into the fluffy, pale-yellow pile of eggs and scooped some into her mouth.

  ‘Mmm,’ she moaned. ‘These have cream in them. I can taste it. My mama used to put cream in hers. That was back before milk cost almost four dollars a gallon.’

  Reade smiled. ‘I’m glad you like them.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Thank you again for your kindness.’

  ‘Not a problem. You, um, mentioned earlier that you weren’t surprised that Genevieve wound up like this. Why did you say that?’

  ‘Because of her storytellin’. She always told tall tales. Always. If she ate the last piece of cake, she’d deny it and say it dropped on the floor and she landed in it face first and that’s why she had chocolate on her mouth.’ Bonnie laughed. ‘After Sally passed, it got worse. She was still tellin’ tale tales, but the tales were more serious. If Genevieve got a bad grade in a class, it was because she’d walked in on her teacher kissin’ another teacher and the teacher was gettin’ even. When she came home with a new dance costume, she claimed she’d borrowed it from a friend, only to have that friend’s mother call home complainin’ that Genevieve talked that friend into givin’ it to her. And then’ – Bonnie paused – ‘well, then there was the granddaddy of ’em all.’

  She took a sip of tea and wiped her mouth with a tissue. ‘Genevieve and Briony were at my house one weekend. It was summer, just a few weeks before the kids were supposed to go back to school. I didn’t have a lot of money, but I tried to make a fun weekend for them all. Burgers, hot dogs, and smores on my little hibachi grill, some time at the beach, card games, watchin’ movies on TV in the dark with popcorn, campin’ out in the backyard. Genevieve would bring her iPod over and she’d show us the latest dance moves. Briony would sketch our portraits. Mostly, we’d laugh.’

  ‘Sounds like good times,’ Reade remarked.

  ‘They were. Maybe too good. At the end of the weekend, Genevieve came to me, cryin’. She didn’t want to go home. I wrote it off. What kid wants summer to end? I told her she had to go home and that maybe she and Briony could come out Columbus Day weekend. That’s when she went into meltdown. She could hardly talk for her cryin’, but when she finally did, she told me Armand had been’ – Bonnie bit her lip and lowered her voice – ‘touching her.’

  ‘In a sexual manner,’ Reade presumed.

  Bonnie nodded. ‘I didn’t believe her. I didn’t believe it was true. Genevieve had lied to get herself out of trouble and lied to get what she wanted so often that I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t. Armand had done so much for both the girls. He supported their dreams of bein’ an actress and an artist. They loved him. They called him “Dad.” He would never have hurt them.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I sent them back home, but I told Armand what Genevieve told me. What if Genevieve told her drama coach or someone at school? I thought I should warn him so he could get Genevieve some help.’ Her eyes turned downward, and her voice filled with grief. ‘It all blew up in my face. I only wanted to help, but Armand accused me of poisonin’ Genevieve against him. Me, of all people. I loved those girls. I loved them like I loved their mama.’

  ‘What happened?’ Reade prompted.

  ‘Armand banned me from seeing them. They weren’t allowed to talk to me, or visit, or write. They weren’t allowed to visit, write, or talk to my boys either. We were all just written off. That weekend in the summer was the last time I ever saw Genevieve or Briony.’

  ‘Did you contact an attorney about your rights as the girls’ aunt?’

  ‘Nah, I didn’t have the money for that. Even if I got a free consultation, I’d wind up payin’ somewhere down the line. I tried callin’ Armand to talk some sense into him, but he wouldn’t take my calls. Then, two months later, I got a call from Armand. I never will forget that night. It was the middle of October and the first cool evening we’d had in months. It was eleven o’clock and Genevieve still hadn’t come home from school. Armand wanted to know if she was with me or the boys, or if she’d tried to call any of us. She hadn’t done either, but Armand didn’t believe me, so I called the police.’

  ‘That’s why the missing person’s report was in your name.’

  ‘Yup. Didn’t take long for the police to figure out Genevieve had run away. Her clothes and iPod were gone, and she’d taken money out of a savings account Sally and Armand had set up for her. Whether or not she ran away with someone, they never did find out.’

  ‘What do you think? Did she run away with a friend? Or maybe a boyfriend?’

  ‘I think Genevieve was alone,’ Bonnie asserted as she picked up a strip of bacon with her fingers and munched on it. ‘After her mama died, she didn’t much like or trust too many people. She enjoyed her own company more than she enjoyed anyone else’s.’

  ‘You still didn’t explain why you thought Genevieve might end up murdered,’ Reade mentioned.

  ‘Well, not only is a young girl out on her own on the streets a target for lunatics, but it was only a matter of time before she told a tall tale about the wrong person.’

  ‘Ms Broussard, do you happen to know the whereabouts of your younger niece?’ Reade asked, much to Bonnie Broussard’s surprise.

  ‘Briony? No. After Genevieve ran away, Armand’s attorney filed an order statin’ that if I or my boys contacted any of them – Armand, Briony, or Genevieve – we would go to jail.’

  ‘So you quite literally haven’t seen or heard from your nieces or your brother-in-law in six years?’

  ‘That’s right. I’d call the Mobile police to check in and see if they’d found anything about Genevieve. But after a couple years, when she would have turned eighteen, it was clear they’d put it down as a runaway case and weren’t pursuin’ it any longer.’

  ‘I know it’s been a while, but can you think of anyone in Genevieve’s past who might have wanted her dead?’

  Bonnie shook her head. ‘No, as I said, she didn’t have many friends. And although Armand and I didn’t always see eye to eye, I know he loved her with all his heart. Same with Briony. She looked up to her big sister. Everyone in the family loved Genevieve. Everyone.’

  TWENTY

  After scrambling some eggs for the young member of Sheriff Reade’s staff, Tish gathered breakfast for the theater group. In deference to those vendors who might attend Sunday church service, the fair was scheduled to open at noon, rather than eleven, and the first theater performance was slated for one in the afternoon rather than twelve, thus pushing the group’s breakfast to eight thirty.

  Tish was happy for the delay, not because it gave her a chance to sleep in – her café still opened bright and early – but because it gave her an extra hour to ensure that Mary Jo and Charlotte were prepared to deal with the Sunday post-church lunch crowd. Giving the roast chickens for her Sunday lunch special a generous slathering of lemon, sage, and onion butter, Tish put the hens into a hot oven, left instruction
s for their further cooking, and took off for the fairgrounds.

  As she pulled the Matrix out of the café parking lot, the familiar ring of her cell phone resonated through the stereo speakers of her car. Pressing the Bluetooth button on the steering wheel, she answered. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hey, Tish. It’s Reade. Got a minute?’

  ‘Hey. Yeah. I’m just on my way to the fair.’

  ‘OK, I’ll make it quick. I got a positive ID this morning. The body in the morgue is Genevieve Savernake.’

  ‘That makes sense. Last night, just before I went to bed, I remembered how Jules went on about Jenny’s name having a double meaning, so I Googled the name “Inkpen.” That village in Berkshire, England, you mentioned? It’s located in the Forest of Savernake.’

  ‘I told you lies are sometimes rooted in the truth,’ Reade reminded.

  ‘You did,’ she acknowledged. ‘You were absolutely correct in this case.’

  ‘Thanks, but do me a favor? Don’t tell Jules his theory was partially true. Otherwise, he’ll take up residence in my office.’

  Tish laughed. ‘You have my solemn word. So did you learn anything else from Jenny’s aunt after feeding her my sodium-pentothal-laced eggs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard you’ve opted to use some of my investigative techniques in your interviews. Namely, bribing the witness with food.’

  It was Reade’s turn to laugh. ‘Not true in this case. Ms Broussard had traveled a long way and hadn’t eaten. Besides, I learned my lesson with Ted Fenton. Apparently, I’m missing something in the combo.’

  ‘Or maybe you have a little something extra. Like a badge?’ Tish suggested. ‘It’s far easier to talk to a caterer than a cop.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So what else did you learn from the victim’s aunt?’ Tish asked as she pulled the Matrix to a halt behind her food booth and cut the engine.

  ‘Not too much that might be relevant to the case. More like details in a character study. The first big takeaway is that Genevieve had a younger sister, Briony. Ms Broussard has no idea of her current whereabouts, but she did say the two girls inherited their dark features from their late father.’

  ‘Inherited? So Genevieve and Briony weren’t adopted.’

  ‘Nope. Bonnie said they always bore a strong resemblance to each other.’

  ‘“Strong resemblance” is putting it mildly.’

  ‘The second takeaway and the biggest bombshell of the conversation is that Genevieve ran away from home shortly after telling her aunt that her stepfather had sexually abused her.’

  ‘Wow! What happened to him?’

  ‘Nothing. Ms Broussard didn’t believe her niece’s story. Genevieve had a lifelong history of telling wild tales – a habit that only got worse when her mother passed – so Broussard dismissed the allegations and told her brother-in-law to get the girl some counseling. Said brother-in-law didn’t take it well and banned Auntie from contacting the family. Genevieve ran away shortly afterward.’

  ‘How sad. The girls were Ms Broussard’s only link to her sister, and Ms Broussard the girls’ only link to their mother. Did the girls’ stepfather say why he cut communications?’

  ‘No, Bonnie Broussard thinks he either assumed she was the one who put Genevieve up to the sex-abuse allegations or that Genevieve was using the abuse allegations to cover up the fact that she was sexually active with someone at Ms Broussard’s house, such as one of Ms Broussard’s sons’ friends.’

  ‘Could either be true?’

  ‘No. Bonnie Broussard had no motive to level that kind of accusation. She praised the way her brother-in-law took care of her nieces. Likewise, she had a tough enough time taking care of her own children; she didn’t need two more mouths to feed, so she definitely wasn’t looking for custody. As for the boyfriend angle, Bonnie claims the girls were never out of her sight. When they visited, they slept in her bed while she slept in a nearby cot. Moreover, during cousin visits, Broussard’s boys were barred from meeting friends as it was considered valued family time.’

  ‘Hmm, sounds like a dead end in relation to the murder.’

  ‘It does, but at least we now have a name to possibly help us fill in what happened during the six years Genevieve was on the streets. Speaking of names,’ he segued, ‘I heard from the parents of the adopted baby girl in Florida. Their daughter is alive, well, and home for the holidays from a graduate theater program at Florida State University. Now that we know Jenny, or Genevieve, wasn’t Lucinda’s daughter, however, none of that information helps much with the case.’

  ‘No, but it might help Lucinda. I understand we can’t give her the information you found—’

  ‘That’s right. The adoption records were only unsealed because the sheriff’s office petitioned the court.’

  ‘But it might provide Lucinda some solace to know her child was adopted at birth and not bounced around the system. Given how Lucinda suspected, and even hoped, that Jenny might be her child, I think she needs to hear something to put her heart and mind at ease.’

  ‘I totally agree. And telling Lucinda her daughter is in Pensacola means that she’ll know which court to petition should she wish to make contact.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Tish murmured in agreement. ‘Say, Clemson, I know this might seem off-topic, but did you and your team happen to learn anything about the fireworks this weekend?’

  ‘Fireworks?’

  ‘Yes, the ones that were being shot off the night of Jenny’s murder and then again the past two nights.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, one of my men brought in the perpetrators right around midnight. A bunch of local high school students. They’re each looking at a maximum twenty-five-hundred-dollar fine and the possibility of imprisonment, but since they’re minors with no priors, I’m sure they’ll get off with five hundred each and community service.’

  ‘Did they tell your officer how they got the fireworks?’

  ‘No, they were surprisingly silent. Kids in their position typically share what they know to appease their parents and redirect the blame on to an adult, but not these guys. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was wondering about the timing of those fireworks. It was awfully convenient for the killer that those rockets should be going off at the exact same time he or she was breaking down the shed door and aiming a rifle at Genevieve Savernake’s chest.’

  ‘Are you saying the fireworks were set off on purpose?’

  ‘I am. Think about it, Clemson. No one at that campground recalled hearing the shot. Why? Because it was lost in a sea of other “shots.” Same goes for the lock. You heard Noble tamping down the stakes on his tent last night. If the killer made half as much noise breaking the lock on the door, the entire group would have been outside their campers in thirty seconds.’

  ‘Go on,’ he urged.

  ‘Well, the killer could hardly have managed to break down a door, steal the rifle, jog to Genevieve’s camper, and pull the trigger, all the while simultaneously lighting rockets, so he or she had to have an accomplice.’

  ‘You think the kids were the accomplices?’

  ‘They might be. They’re teenage kids who just attended their last day of school before two weeks of vacation. Give them fireworks and it’s a safe bet they’re going to set them off that night, rather than save them for a rainy day.’

  ‘Then why were they still setting them off last night and the night before that?’

  ‘That I can’t answer. However, if they were anywhere near the murder scene, we have no idea what they may have witnessed.’

  ‘That’s a valid question I’ll need to ask them.’

  ‘Yes. It’s also entirely possible that those kids weren’t the ones setting off fireworks the night of the murder. They may have been “hired,” for lack of a better word, to set them off the rest of the weekend so that the presence of fireworks on Thursday didn’t seem unusual.’

  ‘If the kids didn’t set off the fireworks on Thursday night, then who did?’
>
  ‘An actual accomplice. Someone complicit in the crime.’

  ‘Then we’d be looking for a pair of murderers,’ Reade presumed.

  ‘Exactly. And this case is full of pairs.’

  ‘That seems a more likely scenario than the killer giving away eight to nine hundred dollars’ worth of fireworks to a bunch of kids,’ he opined.

  ‘Does it, really?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Who would spend close to a grand on an alibi?’

  Tish frowned as she considered the amount of desperation behind such a move. ‘Someone with a great deal to lose.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Tish disconnected from her call with Reade and set off for the campground. As had become her custom, she placed the canteen of coffee and its fixings on the central folding table and then knocked on the door of the Fentons’ Winnebago. Frances, in her pink chenille bathrobe, came to the door and waved Tish inside.

  ‘Morning, Frances,’ Tish tendered as she placed the bag of food on the table of the kitchenette. ‘I have your breakfast burrito with extra peppers and oven-roasted tomato salsa. Eventually, I’ll find a supplier with a greenhouse so I can get decent tomatoes in winter. Until then, oven—’ She looked up to see a bleary-eyed Frances Fenton quietly crying into a tissue. She looked as if she had been weeping for hours. ‘Frances, what’s wrong?’

  Frances shook her head. ‘Where do I even start?’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Some coffee would be great.’

  ‘Sure.’ Tish headed out to the folding table. She returned several seconds later, Stevia-sweetened brew in hand, to find Frances flopped on the sofa.

  ‘Here.’ Tish presented Frances with the steaming hot cup.

  Frances sat up and drank the coffee greedily. ‘Thank you, Tish.’

  ‘Not a problem. Would you like your breakfast?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered distractedly. ‘Yes, I probably should eat something. It’s been a long night.’

  Tish pulled the foil-wrapped burrito from the insulated bag and passed it, along with a couple of napkins, to Frances. Tish had already anticipated Frances’s reply to her next question, but she pulled the container of over-easy eggs and hash browns from the bag and asked anyway. ‘And Ted’s breakfast?’